March 10, 2009

The end to heavyweight brawls?

The NHL GMs at their spring meetings in Naples, Fla. On Tuesday have recommended that players who have ``staged'' fights be assessed a 10-minute misconduct penalty.

That means any brawl where two heavyweights say, ``Do you wanna go?'' would be subject to that rule.

Now, on one hand, you would speculate that this would bring a stop to these kinds of fights. On the other, who really cares if a fighter is gone for five minutes or 15 if he's only playing five minutes a game, anyway?

But it is an interesting recommendation. As many of you have stated: This is one of the most entertaining facets of the game, so why would we want to take it away?

Staged fights are stupid anyway. I don't care for meaningless fights... Now if said heavyweight was going around bashing all the players into the boards, and the other heavyweight said "ok bud, I've had enough" and starts fighting, THAT'S a hockey fight.

"staged fights" might be "stupid" as you say, but when they happen, do people go buy a hot-dog? No, they love 'em!

I also prefer real fights that occur during the action but are "staged fights" really a problem? Who decided there was something wrong with them? Do people after the game go "man that was a great game but I'm so pissed 2 guys had a great fight right after they dropped the puck, I had to cover my eyes"?